The Rig

As of Summer, 2015, our home dark-sky observatory has been retired.Since then we have had the pleasure of using several telescopes
made by PlaneWave Instruments at Sierra Remote Observatories in California.

This
is me with the system we began using for astrophotography in 1994:
a Celestron C-11, an Astro-Physics 1200 German Equatorial Mount,
and a home-made aluminum tripod. One thing I've learned is that
the mount needs to be "overkill" compared to the telescope.
This photo demonstrates what I mean!

Photo
by Tony Hallas

Here
is the Parallax RC and A-P 1200GTO, taken from the Mt. Pinos parking
lot.

Photo
by Grant Hiestand

Here's
the 8" f/4.5 Newtonian at the Hallas Observatory Annex, in
Foresthill, California. To the left is Tony's 14.5" f/8 Classical
Cassegrain (pre-RCOS upgrade) in his roll-off roof observatory.